


Save the Sweets for Last

by IdMonster



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cunnilingus, F/F, Food, Negotiations, Picnics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:47:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25004143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IdMonster/pseuds/IdMonster
Summary: Margaery Tyrell, the secret envoy from Highgarden, enjoys a picnic and some politicking--and more--with Arianne Martell.
Relationships: Arianne Martell/Margaery Tyrell
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20
Collections: Eat Drink and Make Merry 2020





	Save the Sweets for Last

**Author's Note:**

  * For [echoslam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/echoslam/gifts).



In the day, the orange grove was a merry place, full of laughing children. The dappled sunlight fell on rippling water and pink marble, and the cool air was fragrant with the scent of oranges and the sea.

It was different at night. The chilly air sharpened the smell of salt and citrus, and the dark pools seemed bottomless. Moonlight and starlight, filtered through leaves, cast strange shadows on the water. There was no laughter but that of the plashing water, the rustling leaves, and the distant waves. It was quiet, and lonely, and a little bit eerie. Most of all, it was secret.

Arianne walked across the smooth pink marble, now silvery gray in the moonlight. Her feet, clad in silken slippers, made no sound. She was alone in that secret place… perhaps.

She set her basket beside a pool and looked into the dark waters. They would still be warm from the sun, a perfect temperature for a swim. She was tempted to disrobe then and there. Surely that would draw out any watchers.

But no. She was no longer a child, like those who splashed in the pools and gorged themselves on sweets, and then, stuffed and tired, fell asleep at the dinner table. Arianne was a woman grown, and she intended to save the sweets for last.

She sat down on the cool marble, removed her slippers, pulled back her skirts of peacock silk higher than was strictly necessary, and dipped her feet in the pool. The water was blood temperature and felt delicious on her bare skin. Arianne leaned back, letting her gauzy top fall even lower, and swished her feet back and forth. Her toes bobbed in and out of the water like little brown fish.

Would that be enough to lure her quarry?

It seemed not. She opened the basket, spread out the cloth she found within, and began to lay out the dainties. She had chosen them carefully, for the observed and guessed-at tastes of her possible guest, but though Arianne herself was hungry before she was done, no guest appeared.

So. There would be no ‘chance meeting,’ then. 

She opened a flask of summerwine, poured two crystal glasses, and called out, her voice pitched to carry no farther than the grove, “Will you make me feast alone?”

“Certainly not.” Margaery Tyrell stepped out from the shadows of the orange trees. “I was only waiting for an invitation.”

Her gown of gauze and Myrish lace floated up around her slender body as she gracefully sank down to the marble floor. It was the closest Arianne had been to the secret envoy from Highgarden—close enough to catch her scent of roses. Those flowers did not grow well in the heat of Dorne, but Arianne had received little bottles of rose oil and rose perfume as costly gifts, so she recognized the aroma. But the scent that wafted up from Margaery’s gown was far more delicate, as if the woman had the living flowers themselves secreted somewhere on her person.

“I have heard that the golden rose of House Tyrell is more than a sigil,” said Arianne. “Is it true that Highgarden is surrounded by fields of flowers?”

“It's quite true,” Margaery assured her. “Roses of gold and crimson, purple and white and palest pink. We pluck the buds of our favorite colors and dry them, then put them in our drawers to infuse our clothing with the scent. Do you like it?”

Arianne leaned closer, inhaling deeply. Beneath the scent of dried roses was a warmer, human smell that rose up from Margaery’s skin. Her gown was low-cut, displaying her small but tempting breasts like a pair of ripe peaches. 

“Very much,” said Arianne. She indicated the crystal glasses, which she had placed deliberately so Margaery might choose either; she wanted to put the envoy’s mind at ease that poisoning was the absolute last thing she intended. “Summerwine?”

Margaery lifted a glass. “To a pleasant—and productive—meeting.”

They drank. The summerwine was very light, a fresh new vintage with an aftertaste of berries. You could not get drunk on a barrel of it, and Arianne had only taken a single swallow. But it left her feeling lightheaded. Or maybe that was only Margaery’s enticing scent.

“What do Dornishwomen bring to a midnight picnic?” Margaery asked.

“Much less formal food than you’ve been eating at my father’s table,” said Arianne. “I hope you won’t be disappointed.”

A catlike smile hovered at Margaery’s lips. “We shall see. Show me what you have.”

Arianne had been watching the other woman closely at the banquets at her father’s table, and had noticed that she seemed to prefer simpler dishes, pushed hot peppers aside if she could do so discreetly, and would eat pastries with floral flavorings down to the crumbs. 

“Orange-glazed squab legs.” Arianne had initially meant to bring the entire bird, then decided it would be too difficult to eat daintily and had carved it herself. “Crisp-fried clams with yogurt dipping sauce. Lavender cakelets. And orange blossom milk pudding.”

“Someone has been watching me at the table,” Margaery said, giving Arianne a sidelong glance. 

“Perhaps. Eat the clams first, before they get cold.”

They fell to, picking up the strips of sweet flesh, dipping them in the tart yogurt sauce, and devouring them. Soon nothing was left but bones and crumbs.

Margaery licked her lips with a rose-pink tongue. “This is not a very secret picnic, if you had the clams cooked only minutes before.” 

“There is more than one way to keep a secret,” said Arianne. “You can sneak and hide and tiptoe about, and hope that no one sees you. But if they do, they will be instantly suspicious. Or you can make a habit of certain actions, such as midnight feasts, knowing that habits become unremarkable. If I’ve been spied upon in the past, the spies went away both bored and hungry.”

“I would not be bored, watching you.” 

“Nor was it a hardship for me to watch you.”

They looked each other over, deliberately and long. Arianne’s gaze lingered upon Margaery’s heart-shaped face, her tilted eyes, and those tempting little breasts. Margaery paid particular attention to Arianne’s tumble of curly hair, her bare feet, and her exposed thighs. 

_Save the sweets for last,_ Arianne thought, and held out the plate of squab.

“Thank you.” Margaery picked up one of the squab legs and bit into it. 

Arianne followed her. It was a trifle bland for her taste—she hadn’t brought the snake venom dipping sauce that would have given it piquancy and cut the sweetness—but Margaery certainly seemed to enjoy it. 

“I could request that the cooks omit the spiciest ingredients from your food,” Arianne offered.

“I would appreciate it. I’ve sometimes expected my mouth to burst into flames!”

“Consider it done. You will never again have to hide another hot pepper under a discarded piece of flatbread.”

Margaery smiled wryly. “And men say I am subtle.”

“To _men_ , I expect you are.”

The envoy nodded. “It is different, dealing with women. More challenging, in some ways. But there are compensations. I believe that women can understand each other better, for all that men call us mysterious.”

Arianne indicated the lavender cakelets and the pudding. “Shall we see how well I have understood you?”

“By all means.” Margaery picked up a silver spoon and tasted the pudding. She made a little sound, and closed her eyes in what seemed to be unfeigned ecstasy. 

“Try dipping the cakelet in the pudding,” Arianne advised.

They finished the desserts in blissful silence. Arianne had not altered either recipe at all; she too liked the taste of flowers. 

When the women had finished every last crumb and scraped their spoons, she met Margaery’s eyes. “Have I understood you?”

“You have.” Margaery gave another glance at the line where Arianne’s peacock silk ended and the brown skin of her thighs began. “Have I understood you?”

“Oh, yes,” purred Arianne, tugging up the silk. “We have a saying in Dorne: save the sweets for last.”

“We say the same in Highgarden,” replied Margaery. "So. Shall we enjoy our dessert?"

Arianne was about to swing her legs out of the pool, to give her easier access, when Margaery stood up and reached behind her back. The gown tumbled down in a waft of roses, and the envoy of Highgarden stood bare in the moonlight. It seemed to caress her brown-tipped breasts, the narrow curve of her hips, and the dark triangle between her legs. Arianne drew in a deep breath and started to reach out. 

Quick as a flash, Margaery dove into the dark waters. She surfaced at once, laughing, her curling hair sleek as a seal’s. 

“Don’t move,” she said, and pushed Arianne’s thighs apart. And then she bent her head to the throbbing center of her desire. 

Arianne leaned back, bracing her palms on the cool marble, as Margaery lapped and tasted, her tongue darting in and out, flicking at all the most sensitive places. Sometimes water splashed up too, cooler than that hot little tongue, and the difference in sensation forced a moan from Arianne’s lips. 

She’d said not to move, but Arianne couldn’t help twitching, then writhing, and finally thrusting up to meet the envoy’s heated mouth. At last, when her climax swept her, she meant to stifle her cry but couldn’t move her hands without losing her balance. But Margaery’s wet hand was over her mouth as Arianne came, whispering in her ear, “We _do_ understand each other.”

Limp and sated, Arianne lay back on the marble, languidly watching as Margaery climbed out of the pool. Water ran down her body in gleaming streams, making her skin glisten. Tiny droplets shone in her hair and eyelashes.

“Come now,” Margaery murmured, kneeling on the marble. “I’m your guest. It would be a great breach of courtesy to leave me without my own satisfaction—not that watching yours wasn’t satisfying in itself.”

Arianne stretched languorously, her desire returning to her. “I would never be discourteous. Do you taste of roses?”

Margaery stretched out. “You tell me.”

Her inner lips were pink and folded as the petals of a rose, but the scent of them was not floral at all. It was rich and hot and tangy, and the taste was the same: not like orange blossom water, but like a ripe blood orange. But only a little like; mostly, Margaery tasted like herself. Arianne couldn’t get enough of the taste, the scent, the feeling of her wet heat, the slickness under her tongue, the sound of her little gasps and stifled cries. All of it was intoxicating, irresistible, overwhelming.

She felt Margaery beginning to come in the pulse of her inner walls and the flutter of her rose petal folds, and she put her hand over the envoy’s mouth to stifle her cry. “I understand you too.”

Afterward, the women bathed, dried off, and dressed. Margaery brushed a lock of hair from Arianne’s forehead. “So silken. I see many advantages in this alliance.”

“Oh?” returned Arianne. “Are we in an alliance already?”

“It can remain a mere dalliance, if you wish. But I did not come here solely to speak to your father.” Margaery straightened up, and a cool calculation settled over her like a cloak. “The woman who will rule Dorne some day should have a place in Dorne’s negotiations, should she not? Not all meetings take place officially and in royal chambers. Some might occur in orange groves at the dead of night.”

“You were a very well-chosen envoy,” said Arianne. “I was expecting some dried-up old man.”

“Highgarden and Dorne have much in common. We both know that women are not to be overlooked or set aside.”

“Women, of course, being best suited to tend to roses.”

Margaery gave her a wicked smile. “Indeed they are.”

Arianne poured the last of the summerwine into the goblets.

“To understanding,” said Margaery.

“To roses,” said Arianne.

The crystal clinked.


End file.
